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Gamefaqs Link
Last Topic's Ratings:
F-Zero X - GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGA - 97% (19) (3 SR)
Knockout Kings 2000 - BGGGGAG - 79% (7)
Polaris SnoCross - ABA - 33% (3)
Star Wars Rogue Squadron - GGGGGGGGGGGGGAGG - 97% (16) (3 SR)
Starshot: Space Circus Fever - BAG - 50% {3}
Triple Play 2000 - AAAA - 50% (4)
The back and forth between F-Zero X and Star Wars Rogue Squadron all topic was really cool. In retrospect it's probably too much to have two games that are that popular in one topic but it's always interesting to see how things like that play out.
Games for this topic:
Beetle Adventure Racing
Gauntlet Legends
Mario Party 2
Nintama Rantarou 64 Game Gallery
Tom and Jerry in Fists of Furry
World Cup 98
There's a couple games in this set I'm curious to go back to and see how my thoughts on them hold up after all this time. Also, I wonder if this will finally be a good Nintama Rantarou game? I remember when we did the SNES ones I always said I thought the idea was interesting but the execution wasn't there.
Beetle Adventure Racing - A
ReplyDeleteGauntlet Legends - G
Mario Party 2 - G
Nintama Rantarou 64 Game Gallery - B
Tom and Jerry in Fists of Furry - A
World Cup 98 - G
I've never really been a big fan of Beetle Adventure Racing. I put more time into it for this review to see if I was missing anything, but if anything it only dropped my opinion of the game further to the point where I'm very strongly convinced it is A at best. Beetle Adventure Racing is essentially a more fleshed out version of the "Silver Coin Challenge" or "Relic Race" modes from Diddy Kong Racing and Crash Team Racing, where a bunch of hidden collectables are strewn about the course and the goal is to learn a route that allows you to collect them and still manage to finish the track in first place. I've long stated that these modes are the worst parts of their respective games, largely because they take away from the fundamental skill of playing a racing game well, which is taking good racing lines to get fast times. The boxes and collectables are inevitably hidden in various out of the way locations that you would never go to when attempting to drive fast, which is also the case here. However, several factors make Beetle Adventure Racing even more tedious to play than the aforementioned modes. For starters, Beetle Adventure Racing is not a kart racer. Kart racers, when mastered, typically give you an immense degree of control over your vehicle, which makes swerving all over the track to collect the boxes somewhat more reasonable. Beetle Adventure Racing features somewhat arcade-style controls and the handbrake is quite powerful, but it still controls much more stiffly compared to those games and this makes collecting the boxes much more frustrating. Secondly, all unlocks in Beetle Adventure Racing must be done in its Championship mode, which limits how many times you can retry any given course to get everything without starting over from the beginning. True, you can practice in the Single Race mode, but you will still have to duplicate your run in Championship with few tries to do so, and the aforementioned stiff controls can make this a real pain. Of course, something that needs to be pointed out is that collecting the boxes is technically optional. Getting all of them one time rewards a new track for the battle mode, and getting a certain amount will give you a continue, but you're somewhat free to ignore them and just treat the game like a typical racer if you wish. The problem is that the game was clearly designed almost entirely around the box hunting gameplay and feels mediocre when played as a traditional racer. For starters, the game's tracks are way too long, with most tracks taking upwards of 8 minutes to finish. The AI is also obnoxiously rubber-banded, meaning that only the last 30 seconds or so of that 8 minute marathon will actually matter. The tracks themselves also look nice, but often aren't very interesting to race. They're full of alternate paths, but the alternate paths almost always lose significant time compared to just sticking to the road. The championships also progressively add more and more tracks, almost instantly becoming tediously long given the length of the courses. I guess the best thing you can say for this game is that it's fairly unique, but I think that's mainly because developers have gradually learned that these types of mechanics really aren't fun. When it comes to racing games, anything that's not racing tends to just get in the way.
Gauntlet Legends is a pretty good reinvention of the Gauntlet formula. Compared to the older games it's been drastically expanded, but it still retains enough of the original formula that it still feels like Gauntlet. There's something that's just kind of inherently satisfying about brawling through a mob of enemies to shut down a generator, and you'll still be doing that a lot. Compared to the original, your health no longer drains automatically (which is good because the levels are large and full of secrets and you'll need the time to explore a bit), instead the strategy in the game now largely revolves around management of consumable items that can give you a significant power boost to overcome dangerous situations but are also very limited in quantity. In terms of presentation, I feel the game looks pretty decent for N64, with the number of enemies it can put onscreen at once being impressive for its time. Of course, we can't really talk too much about this version without also mentioning its Pseudo-Sequel / Expansion Pack Gauntlet: Dark Legacy, which could be argued to make this version somewhat redundant. Compared to Legends, Dark Legacy basically has more of everything, doubling the number of stages and characters, as well as adding in new attacks and other gameplay changes. In terms of content, Dark Legacy definitely has the edge, though the changes to the game also definitely make it somewhat easier, which has the added effect of making inventory items feel less necessary (and for whatever reason, the inventory management has taken a big hit, as you can no longer see how many uses of your consumable items are left). I would probably still recommend Dark Legacy overall, but the N64 version still feels decently long and has quite a bit of content, so if it's your only option or if you're a huge fan it's still a solid choice.
DeleteMario Party 2 is a great follow-up to the original. For starters, they've fixed the biggest issue with the original, which is that the horrible stick rotation games are gone. No longer does it feel like you have to dodge a bullet every time you play a minigame! The minigames present in this one are still wonderfully creative and fun, with a lot of standout games. Another area where the game has seen big upgrades is to the visual presentation. A fun feature in this game is that each character wears a costume for every board. Sadly, you don't continue to wear the costumes in the minigames, but they do help give the boards more personality. There's really not too much else to say other than that this is clearly one of the best party games of all time and still remains one of the best in the series. I feel it has pretty much the perfect balance of skill and luck to allow it to be accessible to pretty much all audiences and remain fun and chaotic when playing with friends without feeling like your actions barely matter. To give an example from one of the games I played for this review, the game started off with Luigi hitting a hidden block and earning a completely undeserved star on the first turn. He was also easily going to reach Toad first, which would have put him up to a pretty massive early lead purely from RNG. However, before he could get to the star, two Battle Games were triggered, which he didn't win, draining his coins down to 0, so he couldn't get the star, and I got it instead. Afterwards he got hit by the train and had to go back to the start. It's this kind of "what goes around comes around" gameplay that makes the game so endlessly entertaining to play. The new duel minigames also add a lot of intensity to the last handful of turns. I could actually see the case for SRing this game as I feel it remains one of the best party games of all time, but I'm hard-up for SRs already.
Somehow, Nintama Rantarou Game Gallery manages to be even worse than you'd ever expect. It's a very basic minigame collection, but the games are among the lowest effort minigames I've ever seen. There are only four games, two of which are effectively the same. The first game, which is also the only tolerable one, is a kind of sliding block game where you have to push the blocks to make a picture. It's very slow, and you have a chain hook that can instantly pull a block to 1 square in front of you, which makes solving pretty much any puzzle super easy. There is also a multiplayer version of this game where it's a race to solve the puzzle first, but is otherwise mostly the same. Then, there's an absolutely atrocious falling block style game where pieces fall from the top and you simply have to swap them into the correct locations (corresponding to the pictures below) before they land. This has absolutely no depth to it and gets boring within seconds. The final game is a very simple jigsaw like game, though they couldn't put in the effort to make actual jigsaw pieces, you just place blocks into a grid to make a picture. And that's literally the whole game. I feel like you could pick out any 4 random minigames from Mario Party 2 and it'd probably be a better game than this.
DeleteTom and Jerry in Fists of Furry is essentially a poor man's Power Stone. Like in Power Stone, you'll duke it out in 3D arenas, making use of various objects and weapons in an attempt to deplete the opponent's health. However, compared to Power Stone, everything is much more simple. The environments are smaller and don't change much, there aren't nearly as many weapons to use (though at least they replenish constantly), and each character has only a single attack. Most of the gameplay involves throwing various objects at the other person, which is the most consistent way to deal damage, though occasionally Melee weapons can be obtained as well. Thrown objects can be caught and thrown back, which gives a little nuance to the combat, and smacking someone with a melee weapon causes some little health pickups to go flying that you can try to grab. It's super simple and quickly gets repetitive, but it's functional enough and does feel kind of authentic to the series. One area of the game that fares a little better is its visual presentation. The entire game has a bright, clean look that fits well with the cartoony nature of the game, and I like the little title cards that introduce the various levels. It's nothing exceptional, but you could certainly do worse, for example with most of the other games based on this franchise.
World Cup 98 is pretty solid. In a number of ways, it feels like ISS 64, where the game is fast-paced and accessible but also has a fair amount of depth that you can learn gradually. Compared to that game, this is probably a bit more arcadey. Goals are common, slide tackles can be very aggressive, and jumping over slide tackles is very satisfying. Something that stands out to me is that I feel this game has good ball physics, there's been times where I have, say, missed a slide tackle and the offense has passed the ball, only to hit my player's slide and have the ball be deflected realistically. I guess this is something that we take for granted now but in a game of this age I was surprised to see such a competent physics engine. The presentation is also pretty high-quality, with both good player animations and commentary. I quite like the little celebrations that occur after goals and matches, these help to give the game more personality. I also like the world cup mode, I feel that it comprises about the right number of games not to feel overly repetitive, and you can unlock some classic matches too by finishing it. There's not really too much to say other than that this is a pretty good title overall. I still think ISS 64 is probably a little better but if you're looking for something that's a bit easier to learn this might be a good choice.